Welcome

Welcome to the blog devoted to Le Livre de Notes de Voyage, or the Travel Notebook, written by Odélie Demers on a trip with her sister Éva, my father’s mother, from Sanford, Maine, to the Province of Québec in 1898, and to a similar, but much longer journal written by her father, Télesphore Demers, during his four-month trip to Québec with his wife, Henriette, in 1908. The two journals provide a rare view into the life of the Franco-American community of Maine and New England in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and into the lives of family members, neighbors, and friends who remained in Québec.

The original journals are handwritten in French and were for decades in the possession of a granddaughter of Télesphore, Éva's daughter Oline Doiron at her home in Sanford. In the 1990s another grandchild, Edmund Demers, translated the journals into English and made copies of them for several cousins, of whom at least one, my mother, made copies for other family members. That is how the journals came to my attention.

In reading the translations, I became aware for the first time of the history of some of my ancestors just before and after they emigrated from Québec to the United States in the late 1800s. Edmund recently gave me a thank-you letter written to him by my mother in the 1990s in which she wrote that she “found the Demers stories fascinating. They are so different from the staid genealogies I’ve read before.” I, too, find the journals very interesting and they have led me to learn more about my family's history.

Several years ago, after I began to study French seriously, Edmund gave me his copies of the handwritten journals. Reading them in the original French with their clear penmanship brings a greater connection to Odélie and Télesphore and to their world. But with few punctuation marks, paragraphs, or capital letters, they can be difficult to read. So the journals have been transcribed with paragraphs and punctuation marks added, spelling and grammatical errors corrected, and photographs and other images inserted. I've also translated the journals into English. Although Edmund’s translations are excellent, it has been good for me, as someone who is still learning the French language, to write my own.

Although both journals provide much information, I would like to learn more about the people, places, and events described in them. The two journals provide an unusual framework for learning not only about the genealogy and the history of the Demers family and other families mentioned in the journals, but more generally about the history of the French-Canadian emigration to the United States and the history of Québec. Many others will likely feel the same way.

I have conducted some research in Maine and Québec related to the journals and plan to continue doing more. I will post what I've learned and will be learning, and hope that readers will be willing to share their own knowledge, family photographs and other information related to the journals. At some point, all this material may be converted into a book or two.

And I also hope that readers will be willing to share their thoughts on the words and expressions used in the transcribed and translated journals. I have no doubt that the transcriptions and the translations can be improved and will welcome any and all advice on how to do so.

Readers are encouraged to comment in either French or English, or both. As the blog is designed to attract readers from both sides of the border, it is hoped that readers who have learned a second language will feel comfortable using it, even if they may be learning the language or are a bit rusty with it. I will try to write all my posts in both languages. You can write to me through the comment sections of the posts or by sending private emails to: dmdoiron101@gmail.com.

It has been over one hundred years since Odélie and Éva, and then Télesphore and Henriette, made their trips to Canada to visit family and old friends and neighbors. Through their journals, and this blog, the descendants of the people mentioned in the journals may be able to reconnect a little bit with their past and perhaps to each other. And, more generally, for all readers, even those who do not see their ancestors mentioned in them, the journals and other material in this blog should leave them with a greater understanding of the people in this corner of North America that Odelie called “les Canadiens.”

Dennis Doiron, Gardiner, Maine. March 2018.